Romans 10:5-15
There is something called faith …
And there’s something called the church …
Faith is sort of like a fire … and the church is sort of like a fireplace … they need one another.
A fire, without a fireplace, is dangerous, unpredictable, hard to manage …
A fireplace, without a fire, is only so much decoration – nice to look at, but no one lingers at a fireplace without a fire.
Fire and fireplace …
Faith and church …
Faith is our life.
Church is our location.
Faith is the fire.
Church is the fireplace.
They need one another to be effective …
The fireplace needs fire … fire needs the fireplace.
I hear folks say, “Who needs the church? I have my faith.”
I understand.
Let’s be honest … sometimes the church leaves a lot to be desired.
Ask your unchurched neighbors what they think about the church … pour ‘em a drink first, then have a drink yourself, because what you’re likely to hear won’t be nice.
Our unchurched neighbors are likely to say things like:
Churches are cold and clammy … damp and dour … dark and dingy … scoldy and sanctimonious … greedy and gougy … snooty and snotty … all dressed up and no place to go; stuck in the past and going nowhere fast … rules and requirements … short on grace and stingy with forgiveness … doctrine and dogma … dress codes and unmovable pews, and unmovable minds; wanting your money … dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s …
Better pour yourself a stiff drink.
Are they right?
Maybe not … maybe a little … maybe a whole lot in some cases.
Outsiders see things …
A fireplace without a fire.
One of my all-time favorite stories …
A stranger walks into First Presbyterian Church, sits near the back, and during the message of the day, shouts out, “Praise the LORD” … “Hallelujah, preacher,” … “God is good.”
Folks in the pews are a little edgy … turn around, faces in a scowl …
Finally, an usher steps over to the gentleman and says in a stage whisper, “Sir, we don’t do that here.”
“But I’ve got the Spirit,” says the man.
To which the usher replies, “Sir, I don’t care what you have; you didn’t get it here.”
A fireplace without a fire.
When folks tell me they don’t need the church, I wince.
Yes, they need the church …
But the church needs to be ready for some fire.
Some years ago, in a beautiful home, massive fireplace … stonework and a cherrywood mantle – large landscape painting above the mantle … centerpiece of the room.
I said, “Must be a great place to have a fire on a cold wintry evening.”
Said the host:
“We never light a fire here.”
“Too messy.”
When I was child, we visited some friends who had a beautiful living room – white carpet, white couch and chairs … plastic walk mats on the carpet; clear plastic coverings on the furniture.
When we went to their home, my parents warned me to keep my shoes clean.
But kids don’t keep shoes clean.
Playing in the field across from the home, my shoes got muddied … and you know the rest of the story … in spite of ample warning, I tracked in mud when it was time for dinner.
I was an assistant pastor at a large Pittsburg church - three full-time custodians.
Every Monday morning, they’d complain about sand in the classrooms.
Our classrooms had small sandboxes – teachers could tell stories using the sandboxes – Israel in the wilderness, Jesus in the desert … shepherds in the hills … water from the rock … but no matter how careful, there’d be sand on the floor Monday morning.
Since I was in charge of lower-grade education, I heard all the complaints.
Now, I appreciate how hard a church custodian has to work … harder than we realize … Christians are mighty messy, and someone has to clean up after us.
But I remember saying one Monday morning – kids come into the building, teachers use the sand boxes … things happen – we’ve got to clean up afterward.
I don’t like it, you don’t like it, but someone has to do it.
Some years ago, while on retreat with the Ecumenical Institute, I and one other guy were assigned floor scrubbing detail … and when we were done with the hallway, one of the retreat leaders came in with muddy shoes and dirtied up the hallway again, and told us, “Clean it up.”
We knew the drill – life is messy, things happen, the clean-up work is never done …
I like to cook … but I’m a mess when I cook.
Sometimes, after a good dinner, Donna says, “Sit down and relax; I’ll clean it up.”
After 30 minutes of scrubbing pots pans and putting spices away, she’ll wipe her brow and say, “Takes more time to clean up then make dinner.”
I’m on the couch reading, maybe watching TV, playing Solitaire on the computer … so I reply, “What’s that? What did you say?”
John Ortberg tells a story …
After his grandmother died, Grampa had the sad task of cleaning things out …
He came across s box of old dishes … they were blue, and not know what to do with them, he called his daughter-in-law, John’s mother.
The dishes were blue, and that was her favorite color.
“Come on over and take a look at ‘em. If you want ‘em, they’re yours. If not, I’ll give them to the Salvation Army.”
So John’s mother took a look, expecting to find some run-of-the-mill dinnerware. Instead, when she opened the box, she was looking at some of the most beautiful china she’d ever seen.
Each plate, individually painted, a delicate pattern of forget-me-nots – dishes and cups rimmed with gold – the whole set handcrafted in a Bavarian factory destroyed in WW 2, so they were literally irreplaceable.
John’s mother has been in the family for twenty years and had never seen the dishes. She asked her husband who had grown up in the family, and he hadn’t seen them either.
Eventually, they found out from some older family members … when Florence was very young, she was given the china over a period of years – they weren’t a wealthy family, so everyone knew how valuable the china was – Florence got only one piece at a time – confirmation, graduation, birthdays.
Whenever Florence received a piece of china, she wrapped it carefully in tissue, put it in a box, stored in the attic, waiting for a special occasion.
But the special occasion never came along.
So Florence went to her grave with this valuable gift never used.
Fireplaces without a fire.
Furniture wrapped in plastic.
Beautiful dishes never used.
Purpose …
Shouldn’t fireplaces have fires in them?
Shouldn’t furniture be comfortable?
Shouldn’t dishes be used?
The church has a purpose … that’s you and me … each of us, all of us …
When that purposed is lived, there’s nothing more beautiful, more exciting, more remarkable, on the face of the earth…
A local church filled with the Spirit of Jesus.
The church – visionary, courageous, sacrificial, faithful, the light of the world and the salt of the earth.
Like a fireplace with a fire.
A sofa inviting you to sit on down and kick back.
Dishes heaped high with mashed potatoes and gravy and slices of roast beef.
Sunday School rooms with children spilling sand on the floor … and messy kitchens.
Purpose … we have a purpose … really just one … but it’s a biggie … so big maybe we get a little scared, we back off a little … we try another tact … is there anything else we can do?
Let’s take a look at the text … Romans 10:5-15 [read text] …
We could spend the next six months unpacking this one … verse-by-verse, word-for-word, but for our task this morning – just this – Paul’s question:
How are they to hear without someone to proclaim?
When all else is said and done, this is our purpose – to talk about Jesus – intelligently, clearly, kindly.
So that folks can hear, really hear, honestly hear, accurately hear, and if they hear, they may well believe, and if they believe, they’ll find something good and wonderful.
How good it is to know Jesus.
But sometimes I forget how good it really is. Maybe your forget, too.
Jesus has been a part of my life from the get-go.
I grew up in a Christian family.
I went to a Christian high school and a Christian college.
I went to seminary, and married a Christian woman.
Jesus has always been a part of my life.
I can’t imagine life without Him.
To live without reference to Jesus.
To live without the Bible.
Without the church.
Without faith.
Most of my friends and all of my family are Christians.
I’ve never known life outside of Christ.
When I was in seminary, I met a convert to Christianity – he was the first person I’ve ever know to have come to Christ as an adult.
He was a Canadian – in his early forties … a convert to Christ ten years earlier.
He grew up on the rough side of things.
His parents were murdered when he was a child … grew up in an orphanage … tough life … no religion, no faith, no church, no nothing.
He came to Christ through a friend, and then experienced a calling from God for ministry …
A group of us were chatting one evening, and he said to us, “I’m envious of all of you. You have known Christ all of your life.”
I said to Len, “I’m envious of you, because you know, as I will never know, the joy of Christ by contrast.”
If you’ve grown up in Jesus, it’s hard to know how foggy life can be outside of His grace.
To know Jesus is really something.
Profound and beautiful.
To live outside of Christ is hard …
The absence of grace.
No eternal assurance.
Easter and Christmas are just holidays for a little time off.
Without the living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, without the Cross and the Empty Tomb, to fill the center of our lives, the lesser gods will likely win the day.
Money, power, or the quest for youthfulness … popularity, sex, adventure and pleasure … without the anchor of faith, we’re likely to run ourselves ragged looking for what we don’t know, asking for what we never seem to find, knocking on all the latest doors the world gives puts in front of us.
If you’ve grown up in Christ, it’s impossible to imagine life without Christ …
I’ve tried over the years to have non-Christian friends … I’ve learned a lot from them … I’ve learned how silly the church looks to them … how goofy and funny we are in their eyes … the things we fight about; the things we value – the little things we fuss and fret about.
There’s nothing more instructive then getting to know someone outside the church - become friends with them, learn from them – they have a lot to say, if they trust us enough to tell us.
The unchurched can teach us a lot.
They see things we might miss.
But I’ve also learned from them what it’s like to live outside the grace of God.
The fog in the heart.
Something missing.
How can they believe if they’ve not heard?
How can they hear without someone to speak?
Here’s where the rubber hits the road.
The hammer on the nail.
The glove that fits the hand.
The shoe that fits the foot.
Are we sometimes the fireplace without the fire?
Overstuffed furniture covered in plastic?
Beautiful dishes never used for dinner?
Sunday school rooms always clean?
Kitchens neat and tidy?
In thirty-eight years of ministry, I’ve seen it all, heard it all – there’s nothing new under the sun.
The church wrestles needlessly so much of the time … we expend means and money on all sorts of endeavors and programs … even as we forget our singular purpose – to share Jesus with a lonely world, and let the chips fall where they may.
Right now, much of Christendom is engaged in heated debate about homosexuality … before that, it was Civil Rights, and the ordination of women.
Before that dancing and card playing, alcohol and theater attendance … before that slavery and abolition … before that, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and if a mouse were to eat a crumb of consecrated bread, would that mouse be saved?
All of these are important issues … even the mouse … but all of them could have been resolved easily if we had only paid more attention to our singular purpose.
As one pundit put it,
The church majors in the minors
And minors in the majors.
It’s good for us now and then to assess who we really are.
To sit down with the Bible.
To pay attention to our unchurched neighbors.
To ponder our purpose.
We are the church of Jesus Christ.
Called to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth.
To bring good news to the poor …
Proclaim release to the captives …
Recovery of sight to the blind …
Let the oppressed go free …
Proclaim the year of the LORD's favor.
It’s a simple task …
This is not rocket science …
We don’t have to scale the heights or plump the depths …
The word of the LORD is clear and clean … it’s right here and right now.
Have you approached a neighbor or a friend with a simple invitation to come to church with you on a Sunday?
Invite them, pick them up, sit with them, take them to lunch afterward … and then do it again … and then pray for them – be prepared for a long-term commitment, months, years … who knows, you may be the one Jesus uses …
You might be the fireplace for someone’s fire.
The couch on they can rest their weary spirit.
The dish on which the Bread of Heaven is served.
The Sunday School room where they can learn.
The kitchen where Jesus prepares dinner.
That’s our purpose.
That’s who we are.
We are the church of Jesus Christ.
Amen and Amen!
